Chapter 8 Monster
Eva
It wasn't a charge or a tackle, but an incredible burst of speed and strength. One second, twenty feet separated us. The next, I was slammed against the packed earth, a wall of muscle pinning me in place. All the air left my lungs in a sharp gasp.
His hands were huge, one planted beside my head, the other on my thigh, thumb digging deep, holding me in place.
I bucked, twisted, brought my knee up hard. He was ready for it. He shifted his hips, a motion too fluid and fast to track, and my knee glanced off his thigh with a dull thud that hurt me more than him. He didn't even flinch.
He leaned down, all that black hair curtaining us, blocking out the floodlights until all I could see was the silver in his eyes. His breath smelled of moonshine and something wild, like pine and cold earth.
“You know, the last one of you, in Berlin ‘78, she broke my nose.” His voice was a gravelly whisper right against my ear. “Took three teeth. Stubborn as a mule, just like you.” He pressed the thumb on my thigh deeper, a claiming pressure that made me gasp, my body arching in a way that had nothing to do with escape. “I kept her locket. The one with the little lock of your hair inside.”
My mind reeled. Berlin ‘78. A locket. The words meant nothing. A wave of vertigo washed over me, the earth tilting on its axis.
“You’re insane,” I choked out.
“Am I?” He shifted, bringing his other hand up to trace the line of my jaw with a finger that was surprisingly gentle. The touch was electric, a current that ran straight to the throbbing ache between my legs. My traitorous body responded, a soft sigh escaping my lips before I could bite it back. He heard it, of course he heard it. A slow, satisfied smile spread across his face.
“Your body remembers me, Eva. Even if you don't.” His thumb brushed my lower lip. “It remembers my hands, my mouth. It remembers being mine.”
That word. Mine.
It broke the spell. It didn’t arouse; it infuriated.
“No one’s,” I snarled, and I did the one thing he couldn't have expected. I went limp.
My sudden dead weight shifted his balance. It was only a fraction of a second, but it was enough. I slammed my forehead up into his. Bone crunched, a wet, sickening sound. A curse ripped from him, and he was genuinely surprised.
I squirmed free, scrambling backwards in the dirt, my shoulder screaming. I made it to my knees, my good hand slapping around for a weapon, anything. My fingers brushed against cold steel. My straight razor. I snatched it up, flicked it open with a practiced wrist snap, and rose to one knee.
I held the razor out, blade glinting. “Come on, you son of a bitch. Let’s dance.”
He was already standing, one hand swiping at the blood pouring from his nose. He looked at the red smear on his palm, and then at me. And he smiled. A real, full-blown smile that would have been beautiful if it wasn't so terrifying.
“That’s my girl.”
Then I saw it. As he lowered his hand, I saw the skin on his knuckles split open. Not from a cut, but from something pushing from within. Long, black claws, sharp as obsidian, slid from his fingertips. They gleamed in the floodlights, wet and deadly.
My blood ran cold. This wasn’t a trick. This wasn’t a hallucination.
My gaze flickered up to the moon, peeking through the broken roof. It was huge, impossibly bright, a perfect silver disc.
The moon was full.
And the man in front of me was not a man.
The change was a horrifying, fluid ripple. Muscle bulged and reformed. Bones cracked, reshaping with sounds that made my own skeleton ache in sympathy. His spine curved, hunching him forward. The skin on his face stretched, pulling taut over a changing skull. His teeth lengthened into canines, sharp and definitely deadly.
He didn’t turn into a full wolf. Not like the one on my bike. This was something worse. Something in-between. A monster with a human form and a beast's soul.
Seven feet of nightmare stood before me. Fur, black as a starless night, sprouted along his arms and spine. His eyes burned with the same silver light, no longer human but molten, predatory. The torc was the only thing that remained, still hanging around a thick, furred neck.
My grip on the razor was slick with sweat. My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I was sure he could hear it. This was it. This was how I died. Torn apart by a myth in a dead-end town in Kentucky.
But Eva Harlow didn't die on her knees. She died swinging.
He stalked, circling me, a predator toying with its prey. I turned with him, keeping the blade pointed at him, my back to the center of the arena. He was testing me, looking for weakness. Whatever it is, God, he was pissing me off.
“What the fuck are you?” I spat, the words feeling clumsy and inadequate.
He answered, but the sound wasn't a word. It was a growl that came from deep in his chest. He lunged.
It was a blur of black fur and silver light. I threw myself to the side, not away, but in, rolling under the arc of his swipe. I felt the wind of those claws passing over my head as I slit the torc with a soft snip and scrambled away. A small victory. A useless one.
I came up and saw the torc fall right in front of my boots.
Before I could reach for it, a huge foot, no, no longer just a foot but a clawed paw, slammed down on my wrist. Pain, white and blinding, shot up my arm. I screamed, a raw, ragged sound, as he pressed down, grinding my bones into the dirt. The razor fell from my numb fingers.
He leaned down, hot, animal breath washing over my face. The moonlight caught the saliva dripping from his elongated fangs. “You’re slow, Eva,” he rumbled, his voice a distorted version of that drawl. He ran a hot, rough tongue over my cheek. The sheer violation of it, the animal stink of him, sent a wave of nausea and something else, something dark and hot, straight to my core.
I spat in his face.
He reared back, a snarl ripping from his throat. I thought he was going to kill me. He looked like he wanted to.